FATE of cold-water coral reefs-identifying drivers of ecosystem change: project overview and synergies with ATLAS

The FATE project, financed by the Norwegian Research Council (2015-2019), aims to elucidate the fate of cold-water coral reef ecosystems to changing environmental conditions. Through combined field and laboratory studies, the project takes current climate research on cold-water coral ecosystems one-step further by investigating not only the response of the reef building coral Lophelia pertusa, but also the two key associated species – the bivalve Acesta excavata, and the sponge Mycale lingua, in the Norwegian Arctic and boreal regions. In addition, studies on the bioeroding community in the coral reef framework will provide information on the structural resilience of the reef and carbonate budget at present and under future scenarios of global climate change. The field studies aims at characterising seasonal variability in water masses associated with cold-water coral reefs, and correlate this knowledge to variability in the biology, physiology and geobiology of cold-water coral ecosystems.  The laboratory studies aim at testing the combined effects of global warming, ocean acidification and different food availability regimes on the survival and physiological performance of the targeted species.  The resulting data will be combined with energetic and ecosystem models to increase the understanding of how the functioning of cold-water coral- and associated ecosystems services, will change under predicted acidification, warming and food availability scenarios. 

Because of similarities of some of the objectives between the FATE and ATLAS projects, particularly with regards to the laboratory experiments and modelling tasks, the two projects have developed a collaborative effort, through sharing research expertise and students that will participate in experimental studies both in Norway and the Azores. Experimental work with coral reef species, e.g. Lophelia pertusa and Geodia baretti will take place in Norway, whereas experiments with coral garden species, e.g. the gorgonian Dentomuricea meteor and the black coral Antipathella wollastoni will be performed in the Azores.  The objective of this collaboration is to broaden the scope of the results obtained by both project by modelling the projected impacts of global climate change in two of the most important deep-sea habitat types in NE Atlantic, cold-water coral reefs and coral gardens, contributing to a better marine spatial planning of these habitats at the regional and ocean basin scales.